I regularly perform emerge rsync - emerge world -u -p to see what has been updated. Normally, I get a very long list of packages scrolling by.

Last time I did it, I only got
receiving file list ... done
dev-java/xalan/
dev-java/xalan/files/
dev-java/xalan/ChangeLog
dev-java/xalan/xalan-2.4.ebuild
rsync[6188] (receiver) heap statistics:
etc., but no more packages.

I retried, was connected to a different rsync server, same results.
Anything wrong with the rsync servers, or is it a problem at my side?

Thanks, Aruspex.
I think you're right. Saves me the emerge world -u -p when I know beforehand that nothing worth merging has changed. Definitely an improvement. I just wonder then why rsyncing twice showed me the dev-java stuff twice. You would think that after the first new-style rsync they would not show up again.

Still an empty list here... I hope the wheel didn't fall off the gentoo wagon. All of these portage problems lately _________________"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe" -Carl Sagan